From where I stand

Equality, Fairness and Me

I recently read an article on equality and fairness titled, surprisingly, People Don’t Actually Want Equality, by Paul Bloom published October 22, 2015, in the Atlantic. This seems like an heretical statement in the home of the brave and the land of the free where we grew up on a diet of equal rights. Of course, equality will never happen. Genes, heritage, place of birth, physical and mental disabilities and other things we do not control frustrate true equality.

The evidence in the article suggests we do not even really want equality. Studies show that “younger children actually have an anti-equality bias” and prefer distributions where they get a relative advantage.” One for you, two for me, sits well with the one who gets two. Small children and primates will complain bitterly if they get less, but are perfectly satisfied to receive more.

The author goes on to summarize: “What we see from studies of children and studies of small-scale societies is an early-emerging desire for fairness, and a particularly strong motivation not to get less than anyone else. But we don’t find a smidgen of evidence that humans or any other species naturally value equality for its sake.”

There is much more to the article, which I have linked above, and there are many nuances to human reactions, especially as we mature as people and societies. The article got me thinking, though, about the difference between society and human response to the Kingdom of God and God’s view of things. If you do not believe in God, you might as well stop here unless you are curious.

Comedian, Louis C.K., provides this glimpse at equality: When his five-year-old’s toy broke, she demanded that he break her sister’s toy, which would make things equal. He does it and, in the process, feels badly for the other daughter, while his five-year old “got this creepy smile on her face.” It reminds me of an eye for eye. That is certainly equal, and nothing could be more just, but it does not, ultimately, sit well with us.

It does not sit well with God either. God tells us what He really wants: “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6 NIV) Jesus restated the same thing when he said, “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matt. 9:13) He was speaking to the Pharisees, by the way, who thought they had a leg up with God because of their piety.

The important thing here is to understand that God does not want to impose strict justice. He takes no pleasure in it. He does not want to take an eye for an eye. He does not want anyone to perish because of unrighteousness. ( 2 Peter 3:9)

But, ironically, justice is what we insist on many times. We want everything to be equal or fair. It is our natural tendency. What that means to us may develop over time into something more sophisticated than two for me, one for you, or even an eye for an eye, but that desire for justice and fairness does not go away.

We live in an obviously unjust and unfair world. Why God allows injustice and unfairness to continue is an age old question. We tend to think we are taking the moral high ground when we ask, “Why?” Some of us blame God and are angry at Him for it; others find injustice and unfairness a reason not to believe that God even exists.

Inequality and unfairness have existed since Abel made a better offering than Cain and Cain killed Abel. Arguably, the fall and the introduction of sin into the world through Adam and Eve’s choice to ignore the instruction of God was the beginning of injustice and unfairness. The perfect twisted into the imperfect.

God could clean the slate and start over again, but that is obviously not His plan. He did that once and promised not to do it again. The only solace is that this imperfect world will end. God promised that too.

And that gives us a clue to God’s perspective. There is something better. We know that too, intuitively. We long for that. Some of us spend our lives striving for that – striving in vain some might say. What is the use? We cannot change the character of mankind. Our efforts are like the boy sticking his fingers in the holes of the dike.

Some people accuse Christians of checking out, waiting for the rapture. Indeed, we do have eternity with God to dream of, but we dare not “check out” yet. We are not there yet. There is a reason we are here, on this earth, among the injustices and unfairness that is all too prevalent.

More importantly, we are clearly “tested” on our own reactions to people in need. When we feed the hungry, cloth the naked and give to the poor, we do that to God and for God. We are measured by our compassion and the efforts we give to meet those who have need. This unjust world in which we live is the place where our hearts are tested and found full of the right stuff or wanting.

The longing for equality or fairness and the desire to do something about it is a redemptive desire. It is a desire that God shares. We often let the inequalities, injustice and unfairness, however, drive us away from God.

We may become judgmental and righteous, concluding that it is up to us to demand and exact justice. The equality and fairness and justice that people demand, however, take on a character that is full of prideful humanity and void of the spirit of God.

We might go to the opposite spectrum and simply live life for ourselves and what we can get out of it. Each to his own. Survival of the fittest.

We focus on comparisons, and we focus on the here and now, but God sees things differently. Our existence is momentary in comparison to eternity. If we lived as if this life is just a short introduction to eternity with God, we should act differently. It should not make us indifferent to the needs of our fellow men; it should spur us on to take from our wealth and even our own needs to share with those who have less than us.

This is not our natural tendency. But, if we know our treasures are in heaven, then the things we have here and now should not matter so much to us; we should be more willing to share with those who are suffering in the present.

Our focus is all too often on the wrong things. We focus on ourselves and our needs and wants. When we look to others, we tend to see them in comparison to ourselves. If people have more, we are jealous. If they have less, we feel relived that we are not like them. If we are compassionate, we feel there “ought to be a law” that changes inequality. Of course, there would be no inequality if we all shared what we had with others in need.

We also tend to advocate for fairness for what we lack or those with whom we identify lack. Pick a cause and examine the people who are promoting the cause; most of those people are affected adversely by whatever evil the cause seeks to address. Inequalities, however, are equal opportunity oppressors. Numbers will show greater inequality and greater injustice in certain people groups, but that is no consolation for the individual suffering inequality or injustice alone.

As God relates to us, we should relate to others. He extends freely the one thing we need most, relationship with Him and eternity in which there are no tears, no sorrow and no pain. All things will be evened out in the Kingdom of God. This is what we long for and what we are made for. In the meantime, we should be working toward the Kingdom of God on earth. Seek first the Kingdom of God is God’s instruction to us.

We should not be comparing ourselves to others. If we have enough, that is all we need; if we have more than enough, we should share with those who do not have enough. This is a very different ethic than what we naturally tend to adopt.

The First Century Christians shared everything they had in common. No one went without because the individual needs were met by the faith community. The First Church of the Apostles looked more like a hippie commune than a modern congregation.

Even those who advocate for a more equal distribution of wealth (call it socialism or whatever) do not live the ideal they advocate. We all, me included, take care of ourselves first and expect the government, or churches or other organizations to help those who cannot help themselves. Some of us lend our time to those things, but we live for ourselves.

We may talk a different game, but let’s be honest here. We live more like the children in the studies that are the subject of the Atlantic article.